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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Looking for Job Number Two
Produced by Adriene Hill on Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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Photo by Steven Hoang |
For many people, Wall-Street’s current troubles have not hit home—at least not yet. But plenty of families are feeling economic pressure. Food prices are up and keep climbing. Gas prices are hovering around $4 a gallon in the Chicago area. And those stresses have more job-holders looking for a second income.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just over 5 percent of the workforce had more than one job last month. That’s a bit higher than it was a year ago. And professor Nik Theodore thinks those numbers may be low.
THEODORE: There are many people that are getting paid off the books, on the side, picking up other jobs that simply aren't being recorded.
Theodore teaches urban economic development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He says the people who work multiple jobs come from a wide demographic swath.
There are many reasons people take that second job, some are looking for other opportunities, a way to get ahead, to get that NEXT job.
And a lot of people are just trying to make ends meet. It’s a new experience for many workers feeling economic stresses they haven’t felt before.
THEODORE: The pressures that household are facing are not confined just to the working poor. I think it really, this kind of insecurity and those pressures are moving up the income spectrum for the last 8 or 10 years.
As more people feel that strain, Theodore says more people will look for that second income. Which is the position that Abby Mayor finds herself in.
I catch up with her one evening at Kedzie Coin Laundry in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. She’s waiting for the wash cycle to finish. She’s got a full time job as a customer service representative for a suburban firm and her salary isn’t keeping up with her expenses.
MAYOR: There are just not enough jobs and the jobs that there are they are not offering what people should be making. It’s lower and then everything is going up, gas prices...I mean, on my salary it’s hard because I live in the city and I work in the suburbs so it takes a toll.
Mayor tells me she’s never worked a second job before. But, she’s making plans now, to find something in retail, maybe something seasonal. She needs more money to pay for her everyday costs.
MAYOR: I've always tried to stable it out. But it's not that easy any more. Car repairs, something always happens, and you're back down again. No matter how much you try to save something always happens and you're back to square one.
Mayor isn’t alone. Chicago-based job company Career Builder says 9 percent of respondents to a new survey say they took a second job this year.
John Challenger is the CEO of the Chicago-based consulting company Challenger, Gray & Christmas. He says the holiday retail job market will be tight.
CHALLENGER: The labor pool and the demand for these jobs is way up from last year. That means people are going to be competing for fewer jobs. A lot of people will go without the jobs this year who really wish they could have found them.
And the number of jobs those people are applying for might be shrinking. Challenger says many companies are holding back on seasonal hiring, as the economy hurts their bottom lines too.
I’m Adriene Hill, Chicago Public Radio.
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